For students of ceramics of the past, pots which have survived to the present day play a critical role in shaping our perceptions. These pots are vital evidence: they answer questions, they pose further lines of enquiry, they suggest ideas, and they embody a material link with the past.

Documentary evidence is often scarce in the case of small factories which operated in the past, and this gives the surviving products of those factories even greater significance. A small number of documents survives relating to the King Street Factory in Derby, and a group of these has recently been published by John Twitchett (1). Nevertheless, the documentary evidence is limited, and a rounded picture of the King Street Factory's output can only emerge from a study of collections of King Street china.

In preparing the exhibition of King Street china held at Derby Museum and Art Gallery in 1993, Robin Blackwood and I found that few collections of King Street china exist, beyond the excellent one at Royal Crown Derby, and the smaller collection at Derby Museum and Art Gallery. Other King Street pieces are found in private collections, where they often form part of a group of ceramics with a wider theme: for example figures, or Derby china from all three factories. It is in this context that Robin Blackwood has created his collection of glazed white wares made at King Street.

Robin's collection is unique in that it is devoted not simply to King Street china,
but is focused on a particular group of wares from this factory. The size and range of the Blackwood Collection is impressive. Its interest and value to students is enhanced by the thorough documentation which has underpinned Robin's collecting activity. The collection illustrates the enormous variety of shapes which the little King Street factory sold, and presents an insight into the markets and taste for china in later 19^th century Britain. Through his collection Robin has been able to address certain questions, such as the proportion of wares which the King Street factory bought in from other works, and the identification of early King Street figures, made before the factory adopted its own distinctive mark for ornamental wares.

The Blackwood Collection has contributed a very great deal to our knowledge and understanding of the King Street factory. This catalogue, recording the collection for posterity, will be of tremendous value to collectors and students both now and in the future.

Anneke Bambery

Principal Curator

Museum and Art Gallery

Derby

June 1997.

(1) Twitchett, John, In Account with Sampson Hancock 1860^s~1880^s, 1996.
 
 

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